posted at 2:01 pm on June 25, 2012 by Ed Morrissey

Why not close the loop on what should be a rather humiliating moment for NBC News? Howard Kurtz reviewed the WaWa clip and the non-apology from Andrea Mitchell that aired in two separate episodes on MSNBC, and for which NBC News still has not apologized, either to its viewers or to Mitt Romney. Newsbusters has the clip from CNN’s Reliable Sources and the transcript:

KURTZ: But as first pointed out by a blogger named Sooper Mexican, here is the problem. That clip was deceptively edited. Romney had started out talking about a doctor being entangled in government paperwork. And here is how the supermarket anecdote actually ended.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROMNEY: There’s your sandwich. It’s amazing. People in the private sector learned how to compete. It’s time to bring some competition to the Federal Government.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KURTZ: So Romney wasn’t amazed by the touch screen, but by the contrast between a supermarket chain and the government. That kind of editing is enough to give you indigestion.

Now, Andrea Mitchell played the full sound bite the next day, but expressed no regret for the earlier editing.

I’m curious as to why NBC hasn’t apologized yet for the deception. Had this been aired by Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow, or Lawrence O’Donnell, no one would have expected anything different, but they are explicitly opinion hosts. Andrea Mitchell hosts a show on MSNBC but also works as a reporter for NBC News, and that directly relates to the network’s credibility rather than the cable channel. I’m fairly certain Mitchell didn’t edit the video herself, and may not have known the larger context of Romney’s remarks — the first time around. By the time she aired the clip a second time, though, Mitchell obviously knew the larger context, and yet offered no explanation of how NBC got it wrong the first time except to claim that she didn’t have the time to air Romney’s remarks in their proper context.

That’s pretty shameful, and it’s not just conservatives who have noticed it now.

Update: My friend John Ziegler points out in an e-mail that this isn’t the first time Mitchell has done this:

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